Maid Hunt

I have started looking for maid since Feb and gotton 2 maid agency contacts from my friend. Tried to contact Network Resources and Contact Asia and both give me very bochap and slack attitude. Only one responded (Contact Asia) after i questioned the guy why he did not send me the biodata after 1 wk. All of a sudden, they become very "ON" and sent me email of a few biodatas and kept calling me to follow up. Also they are very "high-tech" cos they sent me the videos interview of my shortlisted choices. However, i did not proceed with employing them becos they are muslim and do not eat pork. A bit mah fan for me leh cos my parents cooked pork mostly on weekdays... So i KIV the shortlisted maid. :


Towards end of Feb, i was reading my forum mummies talking abt maid and one of them mentioned that she has a myanmar christian maid and not bad wor cos can speak english too! So I contacted her for her agent contact(JLK) and was very impressed with the efficiency of the agent service cos i received some relevant biodatas on the same day that i called the agent(Ann). I managed to shortlist 2 out of 5 biodatas and Ann helped me to do a round of phone interview to see their spoken english and experience. Then she called back to update me which is a better choice. As i want to give myself more choices, so i told her to keep a lookout if there is any other suitable maid.

So the following week, i met up with Ann @ the branch office and she gave me a few more biodata including a few transfered maids. However, we rejected one transfered maid due to the reason given by maid was she has to work @ employer plus ah ma house. So we told Ann that my maid has to help out @ my parents place too wor.... But we managed to shortlist another recommended fresh maid and wanted to do phone interview with them. However, this maid is in village and not contactable?!?! Anyway, i waited for another week and finally managed to do phone interview with 3 maids. Nearly vomit blood over the phone cos they don't seemed to understand what i was trying to ask them. Is it my england too cheem or my line got problem?!?! Out of the 3 maids, only the first shortlisted one (uni grad) english level was ok cos she say "i can try" so we decided to let her try lah although i prefer the one from village cos from her biodata, she seemed very experience with babies. But i needed someone who can communicate with me else i will vomit blood every day wor... so sacrifice experience with language capability loh. Anyway we gotta pray and ask God to provide a suitable one for us. :)

On the following monday, i fax over the forms to Ann and tuesday, she called me and told me that our application was rejected becos the maid was "booked" by someone else on monday too?!?!? Wah... never know got such thing. Anyway, no choice and back to maid hunt again but i still trust God to send the right one in due time. So Ann sent me 2 more new biodatas few days later and i told her to do phone interview to see which is better. Ann recommend the older one while hubby say he likes the younger one cos look more friendly and maybe Adelle will like her too. As for me, most impt is still communication!! So i made the phone interviews again but this time i got better experience than the last round. No vomit of blood as both are abt the same in terms of spoken english. So i was dilemma and Ann told me to go and pray abt it cos she is also a christian! :)

After much thinking and praying, i decided to go with the younger maid (San). :) I fax over the forms in mid Mar and everything went smoothly this time. San arrived on 23rd Mar and she passed exams! Ann told us that San can start work on 27th or 28th so we decided to start on saturday then. :)

28th Mar

We went over to the agent office to pick up San. When we saw that her, she turned up to be darker than the photo. Later we found out that her hometown is nearer to India so that's explain the skin color. :) Also what surprise me was her spoken english is much better than i have expected cos she can understand basic english. Thank God! As it is first day of work and we are out the whole day, she was a bit blur blur of what's happening. But one good thing was Adelle did not reject our new maid cos Adelle let her carry wor!! Thank God that Adelle is cooperative and accepted San cos it does relief me of carrying a 10+kg in addition of my big tummy when we go out shopping.

At the same time, i found out that San's father is a high school discipline master/teacher, 1 sister who is a bible teacher, 1 sister working in singapore as maid and 1 brother working in msia. Many other younger brothers and sisters of her are still schooling. Her parents is 50+ yrs old and have 9 children in total! She is a uni grad and major in history. Although she is "highly educated" but she is quite humble so far.

29th Mar

I woke up super early at 7am to guide her what to do although i have printed out for her a monthly schedule of her daily tasks. Need to tell her how to use washing machine, dust furnitures, sweep floor, etc etc. She was super efficient and fast. B4 i go back to check on her again, she is done with mopping the floor. We also brought her to my parents house for a quick orientation so that she will not get unease on monday. Hubby say she seemed to be a bit overwhelmed with my tonnes of instructions on 1 single day?!?!? Hmmm... maybe loh but i tot it's like that especially the first day of work where your boss will tell you what's your job scope, roles and responsibilities? Well well, one funny thing to share was i told her to cut apples and b4 i went back to kitchen to check on her, i told hubby to make a guess how she will cut? Hubby guess big while i say small. The results was she showed us pieces of apple in different shapes and small sizes.... wahahahaa..... :P

Anyway, i noticed that for some household chores, she can do very well eg cleaning of glass and mirror. Cos after hubby taught her once and now she can make my glass/mirror sparking clean and shiny. But some stuff, she seemed to get the sequence wrong so need to guide her 2-3 times. But so far i still quite pleased with her work and attitude.

30th Mar

We went over to my parents place and my mum was quite pleased with San so far. Cos Adelle wanted San to carry her and my mum was rather weak in her arms lately so carrying Adelle is too tiring for her so San helps to relief her loh. :) Hopefully San will continue to be a good help for us!

JB trip - 21st Mar 09

Yes, we go JB again! Well we can't go anywhere too far since i m pregnant and economy crisis now so the cheapest is to go JB loh. :P

Anyway, was telling hubby to go JB to eat bak ku teh and do some shopping b4 our new maid come and #2 arrive too. It was last minute decision and we left the house at 1pm. The ride from Causeway was smooth until we reached JB custom and stucked in the long queue. Didn't know that they have relocated the custom area and it was so confusing now. Besides that, we gotta buy their cash card for paying the custom fees too. Though it was a long queue, the new custom building/gantry looks new and good! Hmm.. a bit similar to singapore one leh. :)

We managed to clear the custom by 3pm and tried to find our way to the money changer. Been going round and round, finally found 1 and then we proceed to Taman Sentosa for bak ku teh. Dunno what happen that day as we keep going to the wrong routes and waste a lot of time trying to find our ways here and there.

After our late lunch, we went to Carrefour and then Jusco. Saw a new building call Tesco next to Jusco but didn't go over cos it was already 7pm already. One of my primary objective is to buy diapers and bedsheet for the baby cot. However, found out that diapers there are not cheap anymore (more ex than sg). Bedsheet price is still very cheap as compared to the price of Kiddy palace. I read a posting from my Jun mummies that Tesco sell cheap baby clothes. Maybe next time (wonder when?!?!) can go over to take a look. :)

We head home around 10+pm and was stucked in jam again. Only managed to reach SG at 12am where Adelle already in her la-la-land... All of us including Adelle are so tired that we woke up late the next day!

Princess is 14 months old on 16th Mar

This is my cheeky princess @ 14months old!

So what's new this month :

1. Adelle loves to make funny faces when i took out the camera to take her pictures. ;)

2. Adelle saw or hear the word Foot, she will use her hand to touch her foot

3. Adelle saw or hear the word Fingers, she will open and close her fingers

4. Adelle loves the song "Incy Wincy Spider" and "I am little teapot" and she is able to do the actions whenever she hear the songs.

5. Adelle will tap her heart when we say "scare scare"

Another month passed and Adelle still not walking on her own....lazy bum! :(

Baby #2 - 7th Check up on 14 Mar 2009

Another month has passed and we are going through the usual routine for the monthly check up. Well, as it is baby #2, we aren't excited like last time. Maybe it's also becos we are still very "busy" with Adelle and haven't get into excitement for baby #2?!?

Anyway, same as the last check up, Adelle always make noise the minute we walked into the clinic. Guess what happen this time? Dr Adrian told Adelle that he is not going to "pak-zang". It means he is not going to inject Adelle but it's useless cos Adelle doesn't like to step into the room and not becos of the injection wor.. We always want to let her see mei mei in movement via the ultra sound machine but Adelle doesnt like leh. Guess must be jealousy?!?!? :P

BB#2 is now 26wks and weighing 990g while I have put on close to 10kg. Think i gotta go on diet b4 BB#2 become another giant bb again!! *Stressed* Comparing to the size of Adelle, mei mei is still relatively smaller cos Adelle @ 25+ weeks, already 1.1kg!

Word of the day - THROW

Yesterday morning, Adelle woke up and keep saying the word "THROW" many times. Everything that she hold, she will say "THROW". So i tot is it becos we been saying "Throw" when we teach her to throw the ball to us? :P

Yesterday night when we were at my parents' house, my aunty told me that Adelle keep telling her the word "THROW". So we conclude that this is one of her vocabs in her limited dictionary. ;)

What other words in her limited dictionary? Here are the list :
- Credit Card (Caught her saying credit card when she flip open my wallet one day, you believe?)
- Bounce Bounce Bounce (Been reading a Pooh story book to her where there is a sentence "Tigger say Bounce Bounce Bounce. ")
- Cupboard (We are at gynae clinic and leaning against cupboard. Adelle pointed and say cupboard, you believe?)
- Pooh Pooh Bear (Her favourite friend)

Detail scan @ 21st week - 7th Feb

7th Feb is the day that we will know whether baby #2 is boy or girl. :)

1 out of 5 colleagues guessed baby #2 is a boy. Most of my family members guessed is a boy too becos of the shape. For this pregnancy, my tummy is very sharp, pointed and smaller. :P Even strangers including taxi driver uncle tell me that he is 99% sure is a boy. So is it boy or girl??

Well the result was....... GIRL! Most of them can't believe and still puzzled if the sonographer did capture the correct gender?

On the day of detail scan, we were late cos couldn't find parking lot. Surprisingly, we were allocated to a room whereby the machine is soooo much clearer this time. I guess they may have changed new machine lately and the sonographer told me that machine is her favourite too! :) When she was checking on baby #2, she told me everything looks good while Adelle as usual making noise inside the room. But before hubby took Adelle out, the sonographer told us that this one is a girl too.

After hubby brought Adelle out, it was peace inside the room. So i ask the sonographer is she sure? Well, she say "Yes" and then she was looking thr the pictures that she had captured and realized that she has left out the gender so she rescan again. Well, i tot maybe she will tell me that she scanned wrongly but no wor, she show me this time that there are 3 lines. Thus, it is a fact and truth that baby #2 is girl! :P

Anyway, a little puzzled cos b4 i found out that i was pregnant, i dreamt that i brought a boy to swim and a boy name flashes on my mind too. So i tot it's a boy cos during Adelle's time, i dreamt of a girl and turn up to be a girl mah..... Maybe only God know why this time the dream is different from reality bah?

The estimated weight based of baby #2 on the measurements was 344gram for 21 weeks. Now we know the gender, it's time to crack our brain to think of a girl name.... :)